Hi everyone,
How are you? I hope you are well.
In today's post, I want to share with our Architecture and Design community one of my favourite buildings from my recent trip to Buenos Aires. The place is called Palacio de Aguas Corrientes which literally translates as The Water Company Palace. Based on the information from this website (1), it is a water pumping station that was built in an early stage of the city's development in 1877 by Swedish Argentine architect Carlos Nyströmer and features an eclectic blend of Second French Empire architecture and some Central-European and Renaissance influences (2).
When I first saw the building, I couldn't believe they designed the whole thing just to be a water pumping station. But according to our tour guide, the reason they built it like a palace because it is located within one of the wealthy part of the city at that time and the neighbours didn't want to have an industrial structure look-alike that would ruin the value of the neighbourhood so they decided to build the facade to look like a palace and to represent modernity.
She also explained that the construction of this building responded to a clear need of the city to have a better water treatment system. In the past people got water from rivers or from wells, so they built this complex so they can pump the water from the top. At that time, the station was one of the highest points in the city which is no longer true.
Before getting inside the water plant, we spent quite some time at the entrance of the building to learn about the architecture and design of the facade. We learned from our tour guide that the facade was covered with over 300,000 tiles imported from Royal Doulton, a British ceramics manufacturer. Up until now they are still in good condition and they haven't had to replace any of that. Along the facade, there were some shields representing all the provinces in Argentina.
Shields representing all the provinces in Argentina
Some of the window beams are made of local wood
To be honest, I was a bit lost when we visited inside this buillding because it was not easy for my partner to translate everything for me. But I do remember one interesting thing about the structure of the building. According to our tour guide and this source of facts (2), there are 180 metallic columns which are arranged in a checkerboard pattern to support the structure of the three top floors with twelve tanks that could store 72,000 tons of drinking water. And all the steel works they used here were imported from Belgium and they even hired Belgium engineers to work on this project. My partner's Mum is from Belgium so we are so excited to know that.
The pipes are no longer working and now they used the spaces for offices and architecture heritage.
This is considered the main pipe of the building. This pipe can pump the water in and out of the tank. One interesting fact according to our tour guide is that after they built it, they found out that they lost the technical blueprint of the pumping station so they didn't know very well how everything works so they thought the pipe can only work one way.
As I mentioned, it is no longer working so we have a privilege of getting inside one of the water tank and see how it is to be inside the "giant water tank".
Do you wonder what this is for? Our tour guide said this is built to reduce pressure of the water and to keep the tanks working together and to control the waves within the tank. And if you look further above, there is a small gap between the ceiling and the walls. It is to let the air out otherwise the water keep pressuring the air inside and it can explode. This reminds me about my childhood when I used to help my father to clean our water tank. The tank we had at home is no where near this big but we had a very similar design with small gap and support system at the bottom of the tank.
Do you see the trace of water? In the column we can see gradient colours from dark to light. It is because of water in contact with the materials and you can tell how high the water can go up in here.
The red tanks are still in use for fire emergency.
As a result of the building's history and the institution's heritage, some of the second floor's halls have been turned into a heritage museum. Unfortunately, the museum didn't open at that time because of the pandemic so I could only take some photos at the hallway.
All of my partner's life, he used to pass by this building because it is located on one of the main avenues but he has never been inside. So this time, he took me and his mom to go visit it. The tour is free for everyone, whether you are an Argentinian or not, you are welcome to join. I had a wonderful time and was so glad that I could learn part of Buenos Aires history.
Sources of information:
Unfortunately, the tour is in Spanish only so I couldn't fully understand everything. With my partner's help to translate, I just know a little bit of its history so I went online and read more to understand the context better and to share with our community. Below are some sources of my information that I also used in my post.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palacio_de_Aguas_Corrientes
(2) https://www.welcomeargentina.com/ciudadbuenosaires/heritage-museum.html
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